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Most of the week I´ve been fixing all the little thigs that I broke when I changed the water physics. Some behaviors depended on the (now slower) vertical speed, and some others were still slow even with the gravity suit on. I also tweaked some minor details, like the timing required for walljumping, now it´s a little easier to pull off, even under water.

I´m starting to populate Area 5 with enemies, Metroids, and some surprises. Underwater Metroid fights are quite challenging, but not unfair. Luckily, you won´t have to fight too many Metroids before you find the Gravity suit.

Some of the room layouts had to be changed a lot. By the time you get the Power Bombs, the enemies aren´t much of a challenge. So I had to rely a little more on environmental hazards (well, spikes) to keep things interesting. There are some scripted events left to do, a miniboss, and some tile and background work to finish Area 5. After that, it´s just the Omegas Nest and the Queen´s Lair left to make. Compared to…

I´ve seen many different reactions about the little, improvised April´s fool post, reminding me how "global" the fans are.Here, in Latin America and also in Spain, that celebration is called "The day of the innocents" and it´s celebrated on December 28th.

So, to make it clear to all the concerned people: It was a joke, I tried to make it as obvious (and funny) as possible.

Anyway, I recently tweaked the way the water is drawn. I was making Area 2 when I made the script, and the whole graphic style was much more colorful back then. This new color scheme looks much better IMHO:

The background layers still need some work, the stone texture has still too many colors, and I forgot to mention, the black shadows are in a different, subtractive layer. So it actually looks much better in motion.On a funny side note: I did stumble with a "secret world" situation once, when I tried to switch the layout of the tile sets from spaced to non-spaced.

These months I rediscovered my old Commodore 64. After some hours trying to load a single game from an old tape, I realized... Nostalgia is powerful. I didn´t care too much about the game itself, but the experiences around it are more prevalent over time. I then decided to implement some nostalgia factor in AM2R, to make it a better experience. Now, AM2R features multiple bit ages in one game, sprites of different years and consoles will make you remember the good times of each age.The ugly, and obtrusive GUI was replaced with a classic 8bit interface. It makes the screen much smaller, but it doesn´t get in the way! But not everything is oldschool. Some innovations can be enjoyed too. Inspired by the control scheme of Metroid: Other M, you have now the choice to enter first person mode at any time! Simply rotate you joypad or keyboard 90 degrees clockwise (be careful with the keyboard cable) and you´ll enjoy a new, deep RPG style battle. With a deep, complex and intrincate way of combinin…